


midnight ice

by ninemoons42



Series: Dragon Age Inquisition - Kiriya - Original Flavor [4]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Huddling For Warmth, Kissing, Literal Sleeping Together, Sharing Body Heat, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings, waking alone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-09
Updated: 2015-09-09
Packaged: 2018-04-19 23:01:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4764212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninemoons42/pseuds/ninemoons42
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The freezing night wakes Kiriya up, and sends her searching for warmth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	midnight ice

_I’m not very good at this, am I?_ Familiar voice. Familiar words. She’d had this conversation. Soft torchlight drawing out the gold -- and the faint silver -- in Cullen’s hair, and the tremble that the gloves on his hands couldn’t hide. _...I wasn’t expecting to find you._

She drew him closer, shivering as he seemed to yield to her hands. The rasp of his stubble against her skin -- against her palms, and then against her cheek, as she rose onto the tips of her toes and breathed softly: _Kiss me._

What a smile he had, sweetly yearning, and she closed her eyes, waiting for him, waiting for his touch -- 

Cold, cold, cold! Wind whistling and her feet felt like ice, and she whimpered and drew in on herself and -- 

And Kiriya woke up.

Movement in the corner of her eye: clouds sweeping past the sliverthin silver crescent that was the waning moon. If there were stars in that sky she couldn’t make them out: just the darkness and the lonely silence, the painful sharp _cold_ of her rooms. A single guttering candle and the bits and pieces spilling from her muddy knapsack.

She sat up, huddling into her blankets for scant scarce warmth, and felt the gooseflesh rise up on her bared arms. The log in the fireplace was little more than gray and smoldering ashes. How she’d ever let herself get dragged off to a mountaintop stronghold, she’d never know -- why had she agreed? Why couldn’t she have stayed somewhere warmer? Anything to forget the nightmare memory of failing to outrun ice and snow and rock -- anything to forget her freezing tears as she fell into winter-edged darkness.

The thought propelled Kiriya to action: she thrust her feet into her boots and pulled her clothes back on -- and just as she reached the door she doubled back to the bed and grabbed her blanket. She’d be a sight, walking around Skyhold with her makeshift shawl. She dismissed the thought, and stepped out into the corridor, and now --

Where to go, where to go?

She watched her own shadow moving -- now before her and now behind her as she passed scattered torches, softly burning tapers in their sconces -- and then, she blinked as she faced a familiar set of stairs leading up to a familiar battlement.

A tower looming over her -- and light in its windows, as though to beat back the icy shadows.

Now Kiriya was running for the door that she could see. The great knocker burned her hand with its cold. Three rapid blows. 

Muffled footsteps on the other side of the door, an indistinct grumble -- and then the door was yanked open with such force that she couldn’t help but recoil -- what a sight she had to make, her, the Inquisitor, jumping like a frightened rabbit -- 

“Kiriya,” Cullen said -- and he must have seen something in her face, something in her eyes, because he quickly followed that up with “No, wait, we’ll speak in a moment, come in.”

She sank onto the low bench next to the fire -- a roaring fire! -- and watched with mingled thanks and disbelief as Cullen threw another log in. “Very -- very grateful,” she whispered.

“Give me your hands,” Cullen said, and Kiriya groaned softly when he blew gently onto her fingertips. He was so warm. So warm. She wanted to fall forward into him -- and then found herself pressed securely into his side. “Even your ears are cold,” he said, looking worried.

“The fire in my room went out,” Kiriya managed to say, after a moment. 

“I’ll have to speak to someone about this -- we have runes, we have more than enough firewood, and here you are -- you’re a damned icicle,” he said, chafing heat into her chilled shoulders. “We’re not taking care of you as we should.”

She fought to gather her scattered wits around her. Strength in his hands, warmth in his eyes -- she pulled him close for a kiss, a chaste press of mouth to mouth.

“Even your mouth is cold,” Cullen said, before enfolding her in an embrace.

“You should do something about that,” Kiriya murmured.

That got her a soft chuckle -- and then his image was lightly blurring out as he drew closer, closer, and this time the kiss was perhaps a little _possessive_ , and she couldn’t get enough -- she pressed closer, nipping softly along his bottom lip and then soothing it with her tongue.

Someone groaned -- she couldn’t tell if it had been her own voice or his -- and then Cullen was coaxing her mouth open, his tongue stroking hotly along hers, and she was vaguely glad to be sitting down -- Maker, he kissed with such force, with such sweet ferocity, and she needed to be overwhelmed by him -- 

A soft whistle from just outside.

Kiriya felt Cullen pull away, and she didn’t want to let him go -- he kissed her cheek and rose, and went to the door.

She hid her face in the trailing end of her blanket.

_Click._

Kiriya looked up.

Cullen was smiling at her, was coming back for her -- he was kneeling before her, smiling. “Did you really think I would just kick you out like that?”

“I -- I honestly didn’t know what you were going to do.” She touched his mouth, brushed a wondering fingertip over his chin.

He kissed her fingertip in response. “Stay, if you like. It’s warm here.”

“I’m not intruding on you?”

“I’d say yes to anyone else who asked that question. But as it’s you -- never. You’d never intrude.” She watched as his eyebrows drew together into a brief frown. “Maker. Perhaps there might come a time, Kiriya, when I’d _need_ you to intrude.”

“Cullen,” she whispered, and kissed his forehead. “You know you’d only have to ask.”

“Thank you.” Now he was getting to his feet and he was pulling her up, too, and he was pointing to a corner of the room. “I’m afraid you’ll have to watch your step on that ladder. I’ve been meaning to get it repaired, but there are so many things to do -- ”

Kiriya wrapped her blanket around herself and knotted it at the shoulder, and then with a few steps she was springing up the ladder, and -- 

And now she was in Cullen’s room. 

There was a hole in the ceiling -- she could see the moon through it, floating in the endless dark of the sky -- and there was a bed, low to the floor, and -- 

“You have more blankets than I do,” Kiriya said.

She heard Cullen sputter and shuffle next to her. “Some of them were originally mine?”

“Maybe I’ll take one or two of your blankets back to my room,” she murmured, feeling the faint blush rise on her cheeks as she spoke.

Cullen laughed, softly, and sat down on the bed. She watched him take off his boots, and then -- she blinked -- he was undoing the laces on _her_ boots, too. “You’re not going to sleep with those on, are you?” he asked, when he was done.

“I -- ah -- are you sure?”

“I -- I admit I’m not. You know about my nightmares.”

“I do,” Kiriya whispered.

“So I’m doing this anyway. I don’t like the thought of you being cold.”

And it was so easy, so gentle, falling into his bed and into his arms, like it was something she’d done before.

“Cullen -- ”

“Kiriya,” was the reply, and then she was wrapped up in him, in her blanket and one of his. He was kissing the back of her neck, sweet soft brushes of his lips -- and she had to turn around, she had to see him, she had to kiss him. 

“I’ll be here,” she whispered, “I’ll help you with the bad dreams.”

“Thank you.”

And she closed her eyes to the sound of his slow, soft breaths.

**Author's Note:**

> I am also on [tumblr](http://ninemoons42.tumblr.com/) and my Dragon Age: Inquisition blog is [here](http://ninemoons42-inquisition.tumblr.com/).


End file.
